Google software engineer Ben Goodger introduces the company's new web browser, dubbed Google Chrome, at the company's headquarters in Mountain View, California September 2, 2008. Google Inc's new browser software is designed to work "invisibly" and will run any application that runs on Apple Inc's Safari Web browser, company officials said on Tuesday. REUTERS/Kimberly White (UNITED STATES) less

The logo for the Google Chrome Web browser is shown during a news conference at Google Inc. headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2008. Google Inc. is releasing the Web browser in a long-anticipated move aimed at countering the dominance of Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer and ensuring easy access to its market-leading search engine. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) less

The logo for the Google Chrome Web browser is shown during a news conference at Google Inc. headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2008. Google Inc. is releasing the Web browser in a ... more

Photo: Paul Sakuma, AP

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Browser battle. (Associated Press)

Browser battle. (Associated Press)

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Google's Chrome has a few tarnishes

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Like virtually everything Google Inc. does, its new Internet browser, Chrome, was introduced to great fanfare Tuesday.

Inevitably, many people asked the same question: Is the Mountain View company's product good enough to supplant Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer, the dominant window through which users access the Web?

What I discovered was a product that has some clear advantages over Microsoft's, but also some shortcomings that, overall, hardly make it a killer - at least today.

Installing Chrome, available in a test version at www.google.com/chrome, onto my PC was speedy, requiring no more than a few clicks of the mouse. As part of the setup, the software automatically imported the bookmarks, passwords and other settings from the Internet Explorer browser already on my computer (it does the same for Mozilla's Firefox, the No. 2 browser).

I feared that Google would try to hijack my Internet experience by making its products the default. But Google gave me a choice by asking in a pop-up window whether I would like to keep Google as my browser search engine (other choices include Yahoo and Microsoft Live) and whether it should place a Chrome browser button on my desktop.

Chrome's design, like Google's namesake search engine, is spare to give more space and emphasis to Web pages. A handful of small blue buttons appears in the toolbar above the Web page rather than big colorful buttons that come with Microsoft Internet Explorer.

To accommodate users who keep a lot of Web sites open at once, Google places tabs, which contain Web pages, at the top of the screen. In that way, users have quicker access.

In addition, the tabs are treated as separate browsers, in a sense. Instead of placing the menus in the toolbar at the top of the computer screen, Chrome features them near the top of the individual tabs.

The separate tabs, along with Chrome's underlying software, is supposed to create a more stable environment. Even if one tab freezes up, it won't crash the others. I didn't encounter such a problem, so I can't vouch for the browser's crash resistance.

Among Chrome's selling points is its speed in opening Web pages versus the competition. Generally, the pages did load quickly, although there were some wrinkles.

Chrome is more finicky when it comes to slightly outdated software. I apparently didn't have the latest version of Adobe Flash and therefore images that downloaded without a problem on Internet Explorer failed to download properly using Chrome until I updated my Flash software.

Subsequently, some graphics on usopen.org, for example, appeared in the wrong place on the page, intruding on some of the text.

Navigation is another area where Chrome tries to set itself apart. Rather than having separate boxes for search and for the address bar, Chrome combines them into one box, called an Omnibox.

Users are given suggestions as they type a URL or search term, helping to save time. Those suggestions get more personalized based on the user's browsing history to the point that all I had to do was type in a single letter to get the full Web site address I was seeking.

In some cases, users can search within sites that have their own search engine, like Google-owned YouTube, by hitting the tab key on the computer keyboard without leaving Chrome.

Indeed, part of Chrome's allure is the amount of user history it retains and prominently features on its home page. Images of pages that users visit most often, for instance, appear on the Chrome home page for easy access.

Anyone who shares a computer and who is concerned about privacy can use what's called "incognito," a tab that doesn't retain a record of the sites users visit. But the privacy feature falls short of some of those offered by Microsoft in its latest browser, Internet Explorer 8, which is also in a test phase.

To be sure, Chrome is a work in progress. In addition to being a test version, outside developers are invited to make improvements. But it faces a stiff challenge from Microsoft, which also is making improvements with its latest iteration, which includes some of the same features as Chrome, like tabbed browsing.

What it offers

Google's new browser, Chrome, is an attempt to challenge Microsoft's dominant Internet Explorer by offering: